Reversal of fortune, the George Costanza way

SEINFELD fans will remember the 1994 episode from the fifth season titled The Opposite. The character George Costanza realises that life hasn't worked out the way he would have liked.

"Why did it all turn out like this for me? I had so much promise. I was personable. I was bright. Oh, maybe not academically speaking, but I was perceptive ... It all became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I've ever made in my entire life has been wrong."

He decides to do something about it. After Jerry points out that "if every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right", George starts ignoring his natural judgments, always doing the opposite instead. It works. He meets a beautiful girl, lands a new job and completely turns his life around.

Perhaps Julia Gillard should adopt a similar approach to her prime ministership from here on in. There are plenty of examples where if she had done the exact opposite of what her political instincts told her, the government (and her leadership) would be in much better shape.

Consider 10 Gillard instincts that would have been better ignored:

• I should participate in the ABC's Four Corners program on Kevin Rudd. What could possibly go wrong?
• If I walk away from the deal with Andrew Wilkie on poker machines, he'll understand.
• I should leave Rudd out of my national conference speech referring to ALP prime ministers of the past. I doubt it will cause a stir.
• Dumping Kim Carr from cabinet won't lead him to redouble his efforts counting numbers on Rudd's behalf. While I'm at it, I'll expand cabinet to 22.
• An alliance with the Greens, there's a good idea.
• Even though the ALP has been consistent in opposing offshore processing in countries that are not a signatory to the relevant UN conventions, we won't lose the moral high ground in the debate if we send minors to Malaysia.
• Saying that there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead the day before the election shouldn't prevent me implementing one during the following term. It will be a shame not to hold the citizens assembly, though; it would have been a well respected way to build consensus.
• If I announce that voters will get to see the "real Julia" from now on, that should get my election campaign back on track.
• Announcing an East Timor solution to house asylum-seekers ahead of actually discussing the idea with the East Timorese PM won't damage our chances of making it happen.
• Removing a first-term prime minister in a coup, the likes of which has never been seen before, shouldn't harm my image.

It is startling to most political observers just how often when presented with political choices Gillard opts for the wrong one.

If the PM had done the exact opposite of what her instincts told her on a range of judgment calls during the past two years, Tony Abbott's unpopularity, rather than her own poor polling, would dominate the news cycle.

It is concern about the PM's political judgment - or lack thereof - that is fuelling speculation about a Rudd comeback. The situation is dripping with irony, given the problems Rudd had just before his demise. Of course the single biggest factor that unravelled Rudd's popularity and standing with voters was his backflip on the greatest moral challenge, climate change. He was advised to make such a shift by none other than Gillard and Wayne Swan.

More lessons from Seinfeld could have helped the government out there, too.

The more serious point is what, if anything, can now be done to remedy Gillard's woes.

One senior Labor figure, who has worked closely with her through the years, tells me that what was once her biggest strength - before she assumed the prime ministership - has become her biggest weakness: an unwillingness to concede mistakes.

"Seriously, if you asked her about each and every one of the decisions she has made, including all the stuff-ups, she wouldn't concede any of them was a bad call," the source argues.

Stubbornness may have been a necessary evil for an ambitious wannabe politician on the wrong side of the gender divide in a male-dominated profession. It helped avoid shows of weakness that might have led to accusations that she didn't deserve ongoing promotion.

As a minister it continued to serve her well, for example as she battled with the teachers unions to introduce the MySchool website.

But now that Gillard is PM she needs to more readily learn from mistakes, which means admitting to making them. Mistakes by prime ministers are magnified in a way they rarely are for ministers, as Gillard has been finding out.

There are signs emerging that she has started to go the way Rudd did in his final months in the job, closing herself off from advice, other than that coming from within a select group within the Prime Minister's office.

Team Gillard is becoming warier than ever, even of key backers who helped install her in the leadership. This is the first step towards a disintegration of her support base, turning insiders into outsiders. Rudd did it to the likes of Mark Arbib and we all saw the result. Any bleed in support for Gillard will be slower than it was for Rudd, however, because of her considerably stronger skills in dealing with colleagues, despite the present climate of distrust.

The day after Gillard assumed the Labor leadership I wrote that not only would she win the next election, she would increase Labor's majority. On polling day I used this column to argue that voters should give Gillard the benefit of the doubt and re-elect the Labor government.

Perhaps Gillard isn't the only person who could learn a thing or two from George's radical idea to ignore one's instincts and do the opposite.